Yesterday morning I stood in the Paul C. Blau Theatre at the Clark County Library and taught Write Like You Mean It: A Radical Resilience Workshop for Writers. It was my workshop. My slideshow. My workbook. My flyer on the library wall with a big arrow pointing to... me. To me?

Two years ago, I opened a Google Doc and typed out a few goals. Number one on the list? I wanted my novels in at least one library. Longevity and all. Now? Six of my fiction books are in Las Vegas Clark County Library District's collection, three have been purchased by the Huntsman library, and one is in a library in Farmington. And yesterday there was an actual arrow pointing toward the theatre where I got to teach other writers how to build the goals that got me there. If that isn't proof that SMART goals work when you write them down and refuse to quit, I don't know what is.

My husband and I drove down the day before. I try not to be one of those wives who won't shut up about her husband, but truly, the man is the reason I can do any of this. He packs the car and runs the quadruple-checks, and he's the last calm face I see before I walk into a room full of strangers with a microphone in my hand.

I prepped from the hotel room the evening before. Again at sunrise with my Dunkin Donuts coffee and laptop open to the workbook, the script, the slideshow, the manuscripts for inspiration. I practiced while the City of Sin woke up outside the window, all neon and amber aglow.

The staff prepared the theatre beautifully. Tables spaced out, workbooks and pens at every seat, my title slide up on the big screen, my novels on the display table by the door. A room waiting for its people.

But here's the honest part of this post: six people came.

I felt the sting of that number for about a millisecond. Then I remembered that six people gave up a Saturday morning of their one and only life to sit in a theatre and hear a stranger talk about writing goals. Six people opened the workbooks. Six people wrote down SMART goals. Six people looked me in the eye during the section on leaving the cheap seats, and I could tell it landed. That is not a small turnout. That is six writers whose next twelve months might look different because of a room they chose to be in. With me. With me?

Despite my imposter syndrome, I feel that the workshop itself landed. I watched pens move during the SMART goals block. I watched heads come up during Marginal Adjustments. The Zig Ziglar quote about who you become (not what you achieve) got a real pause in the room. And the discussion about the pillars of Radical Resilience caused true introspection for those in the room. 

That's what I built this thing for: the people choosing to keep on keepin' on... those choosing to write about life instead of just enduring it.

Radical Resilience is a marathon, not a sprint. I said that from the podium yesterday and I'll say it here. My first standalone workshop wasn't standing-room-only and my pacing wasn't perfect. I have notes on what to sharpen for the next one. But it happened. The reality I'm living now is one I wrote down in a notebook two years ago. And the workshop I teach next will be a little bit better than the one I taught yesterday.

Just a little bit better every day, right? Baby steps in the direction of my dreams.

Yours, 

Ever Radically Resilient

Mariah Tyler Moore